


Things We Forged in the Fire

by booksong



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Gen, Morgiana is my queen, Morgiana-centric, focus fic, future!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:23:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1402885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksong/pseuds/booksong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was different things to different people, but in the end she was just the woman who had learned how to forge the bars of her cage into wings.</p>
<p>Morgiana’s legacy, from five points of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things We Forged in the Fire

I.

Sindria knew her simply as the dancer. 

They had seen her in other guises, certainly; had seen her follow delegations into the palace and sit down to eat at feasts, had seen her sparring on the beaches and browsing through the markets. But it was almost as if they thought of those things as a daylight persona, and believed that the true self only emerged under cover of dark, with the flicker of torchlight and the sweet scent of flowers and wine.

She wasn’t sure they were entirely wrong about that.

But each time there was a festival and it was known she was visiting, the people would always begin to crane their necks whenever the dancing festivities began, trading shouts across the stalls and courtyards and whispers from neighbor to neighbor. They would jostle for position near the raised dais that served as a stage and call for her by name, eyes scanning the crowds for a flash of red. And when the right song was finally drummed out into the warm, vibrant night air she would come, slipping seemingly out of nowhere, mounting the stage in a darting whirl of sheer fabric and flashing bangles to the deafening roar of the Sindrians’ delight. 

Whether they saw her for the first time or whether they had been watching for her for years, there were things everyone agreed upon. That she always looked as though she were utterly one with the music, that she danced not to entertain anyone but because her body simply couldn’t express its love of freedom any other way. That the chain cuffs she never took off looked like part of her body, she wore them so proudly and naturally. That she was beautiful. 

And that no matter how many men and women tossed coins and favors at her feet, or draped chains of flowers over her, when at last she descended the stage she never looked twice at anyone but the young man with the shining golden eyes who waited patiently at the foot of the steps to be swept into her arms like a princess. 

He never resisted, and somehow not even the most masculine of the onlookers could blame him. 

II.

The allies and citizens of Balbadd knew her as the Firebird, the breaker of chains, the First of the household. Children spun spare lengths of rope in dusty alleyways and the shadows of wagons and shouted ‘Amol Selsaila!’ as they launched themselves at playmates and stray dogs. 

When she walked around the city, as she often did, the people always wanted to touch her cuffs for luck. Some of them would burst into tears when they did. 

That was how she knew which ones used to be slaves.

She was known to vault from rooftops or alleys without warning to break up fights, and petty thieves attempting to escape with goods sometimes found themselves caught with an iron grip around their throats or biceps, helpless. 

She was known to pause beside fierce-eyed teens practicing their strikes and blocks and correct their form, brusque but gentle, as her own mentor had once done for her. She was known to end tiresome debates and grandstanding in the council halls of the palace simply by flexing the arches of her feet casually into the floor until it began to spiderweb with cracks. People usually cleared their throats and behaved after that, and no one ever dared complain about repairs either.

Sometimes the people couldn’t help but flinch a little under the flat gaze of her slanted eyes, or jump whenever she made a move that was too quick or too graceful to look quite human. Sometimes they couldn’t help feeling a touch of fear when she returned from battles; her robe shredded, long, powerful legs spattered with cuts and bruises, ash smeared across her face like war paint. She looked like no one’s idea of a lady then—until they saw the way she paused to effortlessly support the wounded on her shoulders until she was practically carrying them, allowed children that slipped from their watching mothers’ grasp to cling to her skirt or clamber onto her back. Until they saw a true smile break across her fierce face like sunlight, and something inside of them would relax before they were even conscious of it.

Sometimes at night, when the people looked toward the palace, they saw the burning shape of wings against the jet black sky, casting a flickering glow over the city. 

Some said she was just practicing with the Household Djinn, honing her skills. 

But others insisted she was doing it to remind them they were safe. 

 

III.

Enemies knew her as the devil woman, as that Fanalis bitch, as Balbadd’s attack dog. They fingered whips and chains belted at their waists and told crude, filthy jokes about her around their campfires at night. 

They were known to go to their knees and beg for mercy when her shadow stretched over them, to cover their heads with their arms and soil themselves in terror when they heard the uncoiling clink of her chains. 

They burned dirty pieces of canvas painted with messy likenesses of red birds and flames. Bandits and slavers and corrupt soldiers and officials gave an extra kick or denied food to the people they heard whispering her name in reverence, but they would never sleep well the following night, twitching at shadows. 

They said that you could hear the curses of every slave you’d ever whipped in the slither of her metal, and those she’d struck swore that her blows were calculated to carry the impact of tenfold the pain you’d inflicted on others. They said there were flames reflected in the pupils of her eyes, and that she knew how to call the heathen fire gods of her homeland to aid her. 

The bravest of them put out bounties and rewards to have her killed, though none of them had ever been collected. The cowardly made up off-key chants and ballads that didn’t rhyme and were laced with swearwords and innuendo. 

But they whispered that she could start landslides by driving her fist into the side of mountains, and earthquakes by stirring the sand with her toes. Some of them said they’d seen her suck the flames of wildfires right into her body, others that she could spit smoke and embers like a demon. Some said they’d seen her with pillars of fire for legs, while others insisted that she molted feathers of flame and became a bird mid-battle. 

All of them agreed that if you saw her at night, roused to full fury, she burned so brightly it may as well have been midsummer noon. 

And they spit into the ordinary, crackling flames they knew how to tame and said that if you wanted to even _think_ about stirring up some treasure and action in Balbadd, you had better always have one eye open, watching for even a flicker of red hair.

They said that Balbadd had one of the smallest households of any country; the new and uninitiated would laugh and smirk at each other confidently upon hearing it.

And then they heard the stories about what had happened to the people that had _crossed_ that household. 

IV.

Alibaba Saluja, third son of Rashid Saluja, capturer of the Dungeon of Amon, and King Elect of Balbadd, knew her as nothing more and nothing less than the most amazing woman he’d ever known. And really, considering all the different women he’d met over the years, that was probably the highest praise. 

He felt like he _knew_ her better now, after everything they’d done together. 

He knew he liked how it felt when they faced off against enemies together, shrugging into his Djinn Equip and feeling her there at his back, chains uncoiling like sleepy cobras as they fired red hot. He didn’t care if it was a little immature to relish the way he could watch the resolve in their faces visibly falter, their eyes widen when they realized this conflict might have been _somewhat_ ill-advised. 

He knew that there was a spot on her wrists, right where the cuffs usually covered, that made her gasp and flush as red as her hair when he kissed it.

He knew there were few better sights in the world than that moment the enemy was starting to wear down his strength, chipping away at his magoi, beginning to punch holes in his defense, when Amon’s seal would suddenly start to burn against his hand. And in the next breath the sky would fill with metal and fire and she would drive them back, all merciless kicks and focused, rearing chains. He saw her most every day of his life, but seeing her like that never failed to take his breath away, like the flames themselves had sucked it from his lungs.

He knew he liked how she looked wearing anything, now (and wearing nothing too, to be honest). But the sight of her in that Sindrian dancer’s garb always made his heart stutter like nothing else. 

He knew he liked the way she shouted his name whenever they were in the thick of battle, the same tone whether he happened to be winning handily or losing embarrassingly. He could always hear her voice no matter how much other chaos filled the space between them, and these days she never really had to say anything other than his name. _“Alibaba!”_ It was more like he had simply learned, over time, to hear everything she implied in the word. _I’m coming. Don’t give up. I am proud of you. I believe in you._ But the most important thing he heard in her voice calling his name was always simply _I am here._

He knew that if his mother and father were still alive, they would have approved of her. Sometimes he could almost picture it: his mother’s gentle smile and clasping hands, his father’s quiet pride. He’d confessed that to her in a whisper one night, like a secret, and he remembered nothing so clearly as the way she’d simply, wordlessly cradled his head against her heartbeat and stroked the corners of his damp eyes with her thumbs.

He knew he still thought she was terrifying sometimes, fierce and proud and wild. But somewhere along the line he had admitted to himself that he was, and always had been, hopelessly fascinated by that part of her, and that every time he called her ‘scary’ there was more than a little awe in it. 

He knew that he could trust her implicitly, on the battlefield and in the council halls equally; that if he ever needed someone to lean on or a pair of powerful hands cupped beneath his feet to launch him, she would be there, whether it was literally or metaphorically that he needed the support. And he knew just as well that if he ever did something stupid, he could also trust her to knock his feet out from under him herself.

He knew that if she ever called him _‘my king’_ in public, it meant she was furious, and that he needed to either fix it or _run_. 

He knew that when she stretched out over him some nights, anchoring him to the sheets with the press of her thighs, and called him _‘my king’_ with her mouth against his throat and her fingers knuckle-deep in his hair, it turned his blood to fire. 

And he knew that no matter how many years might pass, how many dungeons he might conquer, or in how high a regard he was held by others, regardless of how many hordes of bandits and insurgents he sent running for the horizon, or how many crowds roared at the sound of his name, he would always, _always_ feel like a maiden being carried by a hero whenever she caught him in her arms. 

 

V. 

Aladdin, the Fourth Magi and bearer of Solomon’s Wisdom, knew her as one of the people he cared for most in the whole world. He might have said she was a friend at one point, but it no longer felt like quite enough. Nothing really felt like enough, and so she was not friend or ally or confidant or companion but simply _Mor_. 

He had visited every country that was known, and some that he was pretty sure weren’t, and when he thought of all the people he had met and grown close to over the years, they filled his head and his heart. But behind them all, if he went down to the very depths and the very beginning, there were two people there, their eyes bright and their hands eternally outstretched. One of them was his king, his best friend, his brother in all but blood. And the other was her, would always be her; the firebird who had, with a little help from the people who loved her, forged the bars of her cage into wings. The two of them were red and gold, fire and sunlight. That had never changed. It had not changed when they’d been apart, walking their own paths sometimes. It had not changed when they’d grown older, their faces and voices and small things altering over the passage of years. It had not changed when he’d watched the two of them realize that despite their romantic fumbling they had never needed to look further than each other. And it had not changed the day he and Alibaba and Mor had sat together on the palace battlements that overlooked the beautiful, winding tangle of Balbadd’s dwellings that sprawled all the way out to the sea, and Alibaba had said, “I can’t promise we’ll be able to go as many adventures as before…but would you ever want to stay here for a while, with me and Morgiana? Not as my Magi, just…as my friend. _Our_ friend.” Morgiana hadn’t added anything, just tipped her head to the side and leaned back against the stone, watching him patiently.

And Aladdin had smiled out across the country they had all fought so hard for, and said, because he had already been decided for months now, “Of course I’ll stay. I’ll always be your friend, silly. And Mor’s friend. And if you ever need me to be your Magi, I think I can do that, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Morgiana has been in the running for my favorite Magi character right from the beginning, and with the way she’s already changed and matured, I’ve never been able to imagine her legacy as anything less than awesome. And there’s not nearly enough fanfiction about her in the fandom either. You keep kicking butt and taking care of your boys, Mor! 
> 
> P.S. If you haven’t already, everyone should go read about the original Morgiana in the [“Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Baba) story from the _1001 Tales from the Arabian Nights_ (which should really be more aptly titled, “Morgiana and How She Saved Everyone From the Forty Thieves"). Girl was a clever, stone-cold badass. The link above is to Wikipedia, but if you want the detail of the full translation, it's [here](http://www.candlelightstories.com/2009/03/27/arabian-nights-ali-baba-and-the-forty-thieves/).
> 
> As always, thank you for reading!


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